Gunter calling on Royals' physical and mental endurance

Reading full-back Chris Gunter believes staying physically and mentally fresh could be key to the Royals taking maximum points from Tuesday evening’s meeting with the Bees at Madejski Stadium.

The Wales international is expecting a close game against Brentford but feels the Royals have improved since their loss in West London earlier in the campaign and need to show their improvements come the 8pm kick-off.

“We’ll try and stay as fresh as possible,” said Gunter. “Sometimes it is a mental endurance as well as physical. We’re here on Tuesday evening, we’ve been good at home this season so if we can win, it will be a decent couple of days for us.

“It wasn’t a great evening down at Griffin Park at the start of the season, we had one of two of those results early on and we’ve put them right in the course of the season, so we will look the same to do on Tuesday.

“I think we’re a different team to the side that played Brentford at the beginning in of the season,” he continued. “We’ll look to play to our full potential.”

After being held to a goalless draw with Barnsley at home on Saturday, Gunter says the Royals shouldn’t be too disheartened with the point, and feels the full attention should now be on gaining all three on Tuesday night.

“Against Barnsley if we’d nicked a goal and got the three points we would probably be looking at it saying it was a really good performance,” reflected the right-back. “It is important just because one of those chances didn’t go in that it we don’t think it was the worst performance in the world.

“We’ve been good this season and we’ve got to remember that. This season is 46 games long and Brentford will be another big game for us, but at this stage they all are.”